Pages

Followers

Tuesday, November 20, 2012

Emotionally Invested

This is going to be a little personal, but maybe more philosophical.

Today I got a FB "invite" to some Event on "why I should hate this blond lady for being a jerk at Arlington National Cemetery," or something like that. Honestly, I didn't bother reading it, I just declined.

The reason I declined was based on what I think of as Total Emotional Investment. This is the amount of emotional energy that I have within myself to care about everything that I care about. I care about many things, both real and conceptual; but in the last 2 years my focus has narrowed to the things that truly matter to me. In the last 6 months it has narrowed even further, and I've had to give up caring about many things that were dear to me.

At the moment, my Emotional Reserve (the amount of energy I have which is set aside for random stuff) is rather low. I'm tired. I'm sad. My blood pressure is screwed up. (Cancer is gone! Happy-face!) But if it's not something that is directly impacting my life, I just don't have the uumph to put into it. If it requires that I get angry, it needs to be worth me risking my life, or another stroke, or a heart attack, or at the very least another 3 days of Headache/Dizzy.

Some blond chick who has no manners or good sense?
Not worth a drop of my Emotional Reserve.

Some random obnoxious troll-chick who is horribly offended that I don't have the energy to care about some random rude stranger's 30 seconds of Rude Behavior immortalized in colored pixels?
So not my problem.

Before you scream at me, read on...

Yes, we have a sacred trust with the dead. Culturally speaking, where we lay our dead to rest is sacred ground, and that should not be violated (never mind that it IS all the time, but that's another story). It's why we are so horrified when punk-ass kids tip over tombstones. It's why we are enraged when people steal bronze grave markers, especially from our veterans, our Honored Dead. It's both a civil & moral crime that cuts to the heart of that sacred trust. It's shameful. It's disrespectful. They are horrible people & deserve to go to jail for desecration. Tombstones are also expensive.

But the dead don't care.
They don't care if a teenager tipped over their headstone or if it stands until time & rain wear it away.
They just don't. If & when those trumpets sound, I promise they won't need a written reminder of their own name.

Those soldiers in Arlington... our great men & women who died fighting under our flag; they didn't hear her.
If by some strange twist of fate, some spirit or soul lingers there, I'm sure their shoulders are broad enough that they would not be wounded by the momentary actions of some vapid twit.
The people harmed here are the living; those who were there at the time grieving for their grandfathers, their lost loves, their brothers & sisters in arms.

Now, who is served by hating this particular idiot on a social media site?
No one.
It certainly won't make her care or apologize.

What it will do is get a whole lot of people riled up about a person who will never change, and will likely brag to her friends that she got so many thousand people on FB pissed at her for less than 30 seconds of effort on her part.
She
thoughtlessly made fun of a sign and showed her total
lack of respect for that place and what it means to our nation.
That's it.
Petty, yes. Stupid, yup. Disrespectful, oh yeah.
Worth my hate? Nope.
She's not worth it. You have to mean something to me to be worthy of my hatred.

Bandwagons have never exactly been my thing, and witch hunts even less.
Quite frankly, I just don't have the Emotional Reserve to be angry at that level of insensitivity & stupidity.
If that makes me selfish, so be it.

I've already given both of these girls more than enough of my time; and yes, a few of my tears.

What I care about right this minute, right now in this week of Thanksgiving, is my family, my home, my job, this silly yellow waistcoat with ten million buttons, my cats, my friends - new, old, face-to-face and online, and I guess The Rosie Dog if I really have to.

I'm thankful that I'm alive, that my husband still loves me, that I'm recovering & improving every day, that the cancer is gone, that I'm warm, fed, loved... that I have people who I love. I'm thankful that my boss can't fire me (haha).

I'm hopeful that we will have living children someday. That I'll be able to drive again soon (without a babysitter), that things will go back to normal... that I'll find those IQ points I lost after surgery... maybe a few memories that I know are hiding in here somewhere...

My days are filled with sewing and cats, my parents & husband; spinning some days, photographs others. A walk when I have the energy for it, history lessons when I don't. (Rosie Dog, if I have to)...

Those things are simple and very personal. They are also the truth. It's what I have room for right now.